Programming Microsoft Visual C++

You'll probably notice that your disk fills up with ActiveX controls, especially if you accept controls from Web sites. Most of these controls are difficult to use unless you have the documentation on hand, but you can have fun experimenting. Try the Marquee.ocx control that is distributed with Visual C++ 6.0. It works fine in both MFC programs and HTML files. The trick is to set the szURL property to the name of another HTML file that contains the text to display in the scrolling marquee window.

Many ActiveX controls were designed for use by Visual Basic programmers. The SysInfo.ocx control that comes with Visual C++, for example, lets you retrieve system parameters as property values. This isn't of much use to a C++ programmer, however, because you can make the equivalent Win32 calls anytime. Unlike the many objects provided by MFC, ActiveX controls are binary objects that are not extensible. For example, you cannot add a property or event to an ActiveX control. Nor can you use many C++ object-oriented techniques like polymorphism with ActiveX controls. Another downside of ActiveX controls is they are not compatible with many advanced MFC concepts such as the document/view architecture, which we will cover later.